Wake
by echizenryo
Summary: [Eiji x Oishi] The Golden Pair faces a harsh reality.


_Wake

* * *

_

He finds Eiji sitting on the back steps, knees drawn to his chest, fingers spread flat on the cement. It's a dark night--no moon, just the cold shimmer of stars--but Oishi can see the pale curve of Eiji's cheek by the light from the house windows. The rest of his face is hidden, veiled by soft tufts of hair and shadow, but Oishi sees all he needs to in the awkwardness of his friend's posture, as if he can't get comfortable and doesn't care to try. His shoulders are visibly tight under the suit's dark material, and his fingers twitch every few moments, curling into loose almost-fists before smoothing flat again.

He knows he should say something, _do_ something, fix this somehow. He opens his mouth more than once to put breath to this thought or just to murmur Eiji's name, but somehow the words never come out, stuck in his throat along with the tastes of bile and watery coffee. And so he just stands there, listening to the muffled sounds of voices from in the house, feeling the dress shoes pinching his toes, and thinking, stupidly, that he wishes this had never happened.

Minutes pass in silence before Eiji lets out a breath and turns his head, just enough so the light catches the dampness on his cheeks. "You can sit down," he says quietly.

The voice is wrong, somehow--too low, too serious. But he can recognize Eiji somewhere inside of it, and so he nods and obeys. The fabric of his suit rustles as he steps forward, and he smooths at it absently, feeling the tie digging into his throat but knowing that it would be wrong--_disrespectful_--for him to remove it, even now.

Eiji slides over an inch to make room for him, but the fit is still tight. Their thighs press together as Oishi sits down, and as Eiji brings his arms up to circle his knees, their shoulders slide into place against one another.

Any other day, Oishi would delight in the closeness, the warmth of Eiji's body against him, the fact that he can feel every breath as it fills Eiji's lungs. Today, it's more like sinking exhausted into a warm bed, and he finds himself sagging into the contact, eyes falling closed in a small moment of relief.

This isn't why he came out here. He didn't come looking for Eiji so _he_ could be comforted, but he finds that he needs it all the same. And anyway, Eiji is leaning against him, too, drawing strength and comfort from his nearness--does it matter which of them needs it more?

Neither of them speak for a long time, the night folding a quiet stillness around them, but finally Eiji draws a breath that he knows is different, prefacing something.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Eiji asks softly. Oishi can feel the vibration of the words deep in his chest. "That he's not here, I mean. I've never been at his house before when he wasn't here, and it..." He shakes his head, the words trailing into silence. "It's weird."

Oishi nods. Again, his voice seems trapped in his throat, but Eiji doesn't seem to mind. He hasn't said much since the funeral, or even since they got the news at school on Monday, but Oishi knew there would be a time when he would want--_need_--to talk.

"I'm really mad at him," Eiji says with sudden fierceness. His hands are in fists again, shaking on his lap. "If he was here, I...I think I'd hit him." He glances over at Oishi with eyes that seem darker than usual, vulnerable and lost. His lower lip is trembling. "Is that awful? Does that make me a bad person, that I'm so mad at him?"

Oishi shakes his head. For once, the words come out clear and steady. "No. I'm mad at him, too."

Eiji's eyes widen. "You are?"

"Yes. He..." He shakes his head. "He was selfish. He didn't think about what this would do to the people who...to his friends, and his family. Or if he did, he didn't care enough to _not_ do it."

The words hang in the air between them for a few seconds, stinging and true. Inside the house, someone has turned on the television; Oishi can hear the high, false sound of canned laughter through the window.

"How can he really be gone?" Eiji whispers finally.

It's not a question he can answer, so he doesn't try. "I don't know," he murmurs.

The reality of it all hasn't quite hit him yet, he knows. It will be different when they go back to school--different when there's an empty seat in the classroom, an empty locker at practice. God, he doesn't want to go back to practice. It will be easy to pretend, otherwise--they didn't really see each other all that often in school, after all--but to walk onto the courts and know that one of their number is missing,_ gone_, never coming back...

It seems wrong to hate him for this, but Oishi finds that he does. He hates him. For suffering in silence, for hiding so well behind gentle smiles and soft words--for ripping their world apart like this. For giving up. For not saying anything when he _could_ have, when there were so many people who would gladly have helped him...so many people who now are tearing themselves apart with guilt, wondering if they could have done something, if a concerned word or question might have prevented this, fixed this before it was too late...

"How's Tezuka?"

Eiji's voice pulls him from his thoughts with a guilty start. He needs a moment before the words make any sense, and longer before he can draw together a coherent answer. "He's...Tezuka," he answers finally. "He's dealing with it."

Eiji nods. His fingers draw a slow circle on the cement of the steps. "They were...close, na, Oishi?"

Oishi finds that he has to look away when he answers. "Hai. They were...close."

There's a lot more to say, but both of them are tired. The funeral was longer than its hours could account for, and Oishi knows that both of them--_all_ of them--are still reeling from the shock of it. Of seeing him lying there, still and cold, his hair styled the wrong way and his hands not so much folded as _positioned_, posed. Oishi didn't want to touch him, but watched as Eiji did, surprisingly steady fingers reaching out to brush one still hand. Gently. Almost curiously.

He remembers what Eiji said then, in a voice so small he almost didn't recognize it.

_"He...he's not breathing."_ Eiji's head tilted down as his fingers traced over the pale skin, lingering at the crease by the thumb. _"I know that's a dumb thing to say. Of course he's not breathing. But...but I guess I thought that maybe...that if I touched him, he would..."_

That was when the hatred first started building in him, as he heard those words and realized that this was Eiji's first experience with death--that Eiji had _lost_ something because of this, some precious innocence, and there was nothing he or anyone else could do to give it back.

He knows, even now, that the hatred is just a convenience, something to hide behind while the pain is still too raw. It won't last forever, or even maybe for very long. But once it's gone, there will be nothing left but the cold, empty grief of this loss, the knowledge that maybe he _could_ have done something, and the ache of a face he can never see again, a familiar smile gone hazy and indistinct with memory.

So for now, he lets himself hate Fuji, and that makes everything easier.

* * *

**japanese glossary**:  
hai - yes  
na - right? 


End file.
